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An excellent performance, with the exception of our finishing. The only downside to come from the game was a knock picked up by Jason Malpass, ruling him out for 12-14 days. He will be in a race against time to get fit for our opening group game against France.

Another good performace, this time against much better opposition. Wayne Rooney, now 31, continues to show his importance the the team. Jack Wilshere's injury is nothing to worry about, he will only be out for five days.

Just read through this thread, wow. What a manager you are, keep it up and good luck with the World Cup and Man City.

Thanks alot. Always nice to have more people following the thread.

Originally Posted by FMtillidie

do you have any goals for this save tom?

The goals are set on the first page;

Aims And Ambitions

I don't really have any aims in my save, except that I want to have a fun save.

I have never in my history on Football Manager had a long career save, (I have had long saves, but always with just one club), so I really just want to have an enjoyable save, maybe jumping from club to club, and bettering my own position. Over the years on FM I feel I have developed my skills, and hope that I could be relatively successful no matter what country or league I play in.

If not, then it could be an even more enjyable in a slightly perverse way!

I hope that you, (if there are any of you), enjoy following my journey.

Name: Manchester City F.CNickname: The CitizensYear Founded: 1887Stadium: The Etihad Stadium (47,405)Status: Professional

An offer I simply couldn't say no to. Despite heavy investment, the club hasn't won much in the last seven years since Roberto Mancini guided them to the 2011 FA Cup victory over Stoke. A Europa League title has been the highlight, and even that was back in 2014! So my job is pretty simple; bring success to the club. In the coming season the club isn't in Europe after a sixth placed finish last season, so I want to deliver a domestic trophy and get the club into the Champions League.

Finances And Squad

The finances are in a good state, but I'm sure that will change once I get stucj into the transfer market. A lack of Champions League football in the coming season will see them take a hit aswell. Maybe I can't g too over the top with my spending after all?

A mass reshaping of this squad is needed. There are too many older players, and also alot of players who have grown stale after spending so long at the club. The huge transfer budget will come in handy!

A season preview with board and personal expectations will follow after the World Cup.

We got better as the group stages progressed. Against the French I was quite disappointed. We may have won, but they were all ver us and easily deserved smething from the game. However, we took our chances when they came and got off to a very good start.

After that we ha two pretty comfortable wins ver the USA and Egypt. The Egypt game saw the emergence of something special that was to come in the rest of the tournament.

Other Group Standings

Group G runners up Mexico, the side we beat in the 2017 Confederations Cup Final, would be our opponents in the second round.

Not a great performance from us, but we came through to get the victory thanks to a double from Jason Malpass. As with the Confederations Cup final last season, the Meixcans were outstanding, but we took our chances when they came to run out 2-1 win.

Quarter Finals

England can win penalty shoot outs! How we didn't win efore it got to penalties is beyond me. We had the majority of the possession, and created many more chances, but simply couldn't score and the game finished 0-0 after extra time. In the shoot out our penalties were excellent, and we got the semi-final spot we thoroughly deserved.

Semi Finals

Against the current world champions we were simply amazing. Ok we conceded more possession than we often do, and indeed they had more attempts - but our finishing was clinical. Jason Malpass smashed in a couple more goals to take his tally for the tournament to seven. But Danny Welbeck, who only came on for the injured Rooney, stole the show with a stunning hattrick as we routed the Colombians 5-1.

The injury to Rooney was a major concern though. News of his condition was a blow - he would miss the World Cup final.

Third Place Playoff

In a game that went this way and that, the 2014 World Cup winners managed to claw back a bit of respect that they lost against us in the semi final, by finishing in third place.

What a stunning way to win the World Cup! Trailing 2-0 early on, the temptation was to change something. I kept it as it was and just asked them to keep hold of the ball. At half time it was still 2-0, but we had started to create. I was calm, but still give them a bit of a bollocking, and my how it worked.

Malpass may have struck all four goals, but midfield man Tom Cleverley stepped up, setting up two. Jack Wilshere and Scott Sinclair got the other assists, as we completed the greatest comeback in World Cup final history!

I have thoroughly enjoyed my time as England national team manager over the last couple of years. It goes without saying that winning the World Cup is the greatest achievement of my career, and no matter what I do in the rest of my career it will never compare to the amazing feeling of leading my country to World Cup glory.

However, in the past year since I took the job full time I have missed the day to day involvement of club management. And having recently being appointed as the new Manchester City manager, I feel it is right that I step down as England manager so I can give Manchester City 100%.

I wish the new manager every success, and hope that the players work as hard for him as they have for me.

They think it's all over. It is now.

Nigel Gibbs has followed me to Manchester City and he will again be my assistant manager. Dennis Lawrence has also joined the coaching staff at the Etihad Stadium.

A brilliant transfer budget, which is needed as the squad needs a lot of work doing to it. Merely finishing in the top four is not an option to me, and I would like to pick up a domestic trophy this campaign while in our transitional period.

An update of the squad will be posted at the end of the transfer window, along with news of our new arrivals and departures.

Tom, just read through all 9 pages of this, incredible stuff! You seem to just naturally encourage success at whichever club you go to! Would like to see you leave England soon though & try your way in a big foreign league

Tom, just read through all 9 pages of this, incredible stuff! You seem to just naturally encourage success at whichever club you go to! Would like to see you leave England soon though & try your way in a big foreign league

Thanks. And don't worry, after City i plan to head abroard for a different kind of challenge.

Originally Posted by FMtillidie

christ what a budget

I have been very fortunate!

Originally Posted by fman1

Congrats on the World Cup. Now the job of rebuilding City. Think it will take a season or two given the age of the squad and fees wanted by clubs for their players, but all the best.

Cheers.

The rebuilding at City hasn't been as tough as i imagined. The defenders, despite their ages, are still in great condition so i haven't had to spend there. The only area that did need a fair bit of work was the midfield - that has been given a facelift. Upfront i have signed just one player, who has arrived for a British transfer record. At the age of 26 he is in his prime and along with Aguero and Cavani he can lead us to glory.

I actually think we could win the title this season now.

Originally Posted by chile_paul

Huge congrats on that season - in all my (many) years of playing CM and FM the quadruple has always eluded me - always slipped up in one of the four!

Well done!

Thanks. I think it was the first time i had ever managed it myself.

Originally Posted by hursty2

That's a great world cup win! It must feel amazing that Malpass scored 4 in the final, nothing better than when of your old players does that.

It was, but i do wish a bit that Scott Sinclair and Danny Welbeck had got on the scoresheet aswell. Having a Swansea front three all score in the final would have been brilliant!

A very busy transfer window, with us spending very heavily to reshape the squad. In my defence I did make almost half the amount we spent back in players sales, and in the process got some very high earners off the books. For example, Andriy Pyatov may have left on a free, (with a £1.6million pay off), but he was on £93,000 p/w, which would have equated to nearly £5million over the course of a year.

Also some transfers were arranged before I joined the club; Samir Nasri and Carlos Kameni's moves were already agreed, and Javier Mascherano had already decided to leave the club.
I would have maybe like to have kept him, because although he is nw 34, he is still in a great condition.

Maximiliano Garuti
Looks an excellent young goalkeeper, and under the guidance of Joe Hart I'm sure he can improve further yet.

Brian Sinclair
Looks very good for just 15 years old. He has four star potential so I have high hope for him.

Nestor Schmidt
The may who did so well for me at Swansea comes for a hefty price tag, but he really does look like he can be a real creative force for us. £20million of the fee is to be paid over 48 months.

Neymar
New British transfer record, eclipsing the £44million City spent on Edison Cavani a couple of years ago. There is pressure on him, but I'm sure he will deliver. £24million of his fee is to be paid over 48 months.

Joe Allen
A snip for £2.5million. Hopefully he can do the same job he did for me at Swansea - sit infront of the back four making interceltions and sweeping things up.

Josh McEachran
As with Allen, he's a real snip at £2.5million. He will be a squad player, but I have no doubts about his ability to step in and perform when needed.

Mehdi Lagache
An excellent looking player for the future. He comes with big wages for one so young, but I'm sure he will be worth it, now and in the future.

Lucas Moura
The third of my big money signings. He could give us a real spark going forward, joining up with Aguero, Cavani, and Neymar to basically give us a front four.

Tobias Probst
Another good young prospect, he looks like he could be equally adept in both midfield and defense. Some good tutoring is needed though.

As you can see we have alot more players in their twenties compard to when I took over. Aside from the defenders, the majority of the players are now younger than thirty, and there is a lot mre balance to it in terms of youth and experience. I will be happy to post any screenshots of regens you want to see.

Preseason Fixtures

Three morale boosting results, with my strikers getting goals, and the new signings blending nicely into the team. The big kickoff at home to Bolton looms.

£82mil?! had it been accepted would you have gone through with the deal?

Yes, because that was very early in the transfer window. Neymar and Lucas Moura were the back-up plan(s). Had Malpass joined then I wouldn't have signed either of those two, and wuld have probably tried to shift another player.

A good start to life as Manchester City manager. We totally controlled both games and thoroughl desered the results we got. In truth the attacking players haven't all fully blended yet, but things are looking good early on.

League Cup - 2nd Round

A good win for us. Not that we shouldn't be beating Championship sides, but I did switch things around a bit, so it was nice that those who came into the side put in good performances.

suprised you went easy mode with accepting the City job. But as we know money talks lol. Brilliant with Swansea though. Nice to see a Welsh side kick some ass

I was unemployed at the time, apart from been in charge of England, who I had alread decided to leave.

At the end of the day what was I meant to do? No other big jobs had come up at the time, and I could hardly just sit and wait to see what happened with other managers, etc, after the World Cup and let the opporutnity pass me by.

A very good three games for us through September. We were excellent at home to Norwich, dominating with 63% of the possession, and limiting to just four shots at goal. The Chelsea results was very good to be honest - we came from behind twice to take what could be a valuable point come the end of the season. The Liverpool game was superb, mainly because it was done without me in charge; I had to serve a touchline ban after comments I made after the Chelsea game. Cavani kept up his superb start to the season, and even at the age of 31 he's showing no signs of slowing down.

Our game in hand is against Southampton, which is part of the current game weekend - it just happens to fall on October 1st, which is a Monday.

League Cup - 3rd Round

Pretty dire performance, which was entirely my fault as I tried out a new formatin that the players obviously weren't ready to use. Still, we got the win and we're through to the fourth round, in which we face Liverpool at Stamford Bridge.

Believe it or not, despite all the big name arrivals i managed to cut wage expenditure by £13million a year, according to the salary section on the team stats page. That means that over the course of this season we will pay around £110million in player wages. I aim to get that below £100million by the start of next season.

Excellent month for us, winning four out of four, and cementing our place at the top of the table. A couple of the performances weren't great; Wolves away and Spurs at home were a bit of a struggle, but we grinded out the victories in what were hard fought games. In the other two against Southampton and Watford we were top drawer, dominating possession and creating chance after chance. Hopefully we can carry on like this!

League Cup - 4th Round

Excellent performance. I played an almost full strength side, and it showed. We had the majority of the ball, created 19 chances, and limited Liverpool to one shot - and even that wasn't how they scored! We march on into the quarer finals, and the draw has been very interesting for us.

Beautiful month mate, it's amazing how far Swansea are off the top already, you've definitely got another shot at Malpass if they stay around mid-table. Interesting draw in the Carling Cup, but with your history in the competition I'd put my house on a City win

Beautiful month mate, it's amazing how far Swansea are off the top already, you've definitely got another shot at Malpass if they stay around mid-table. Interesting draw in the Carling Cup, but with your history in the competition I'd put my house on a City win

Last eason Swanea finished down in eighth and failed to qualify for Europe, hence why Rafa Benitez was sacked.

This season they started shockingly, losing their first three games. However, they have really recovered of late and are starting to climb the table. They have just beat Ipwich, (first game of November), and are now seven league games unbeaten. Malpass remains a target though, and hopefully the good relationship I have with him will help the transfer happen eventually.

It could with Mancini in charge. During two spells with City, (since the start of the save), he only managed to win the Europa League (2014), and the FA Cup (2014). Between 2014 and his reappointment at City in 2016, he was hired and fired by Internazionale and Liverpool.

Having said that, he is making decent progress with the Swans after his shakey start to the season.

Another superb month fr us, with four wins out of four, three of which were away from home. The Birmingham game was very tricky, but the win came eventually. We went ahead through Neymar, but Nicklas Bendtner equalied with a penalty. However, Sergio Aguero won it with ten minutes to go. Newcastle again was tough. Trailing 1-0 at halftime I gave the team a stern talking to, and we came out and scored two before the hour. From there we controlled the game and saw it out. After that was a comfortable home win against Hull, and then probably our best performance of the season at Ipswich as we won 4-0 at a canter.

Beautiful month, not having European matches is making the league a cake-walk. Speaking of records though, are England still unbeaten? I think you would've eclipsed Spain's record unbeaten streak during the World Cup.

I have finally read through this entire career thread and I gotta say...epic! You're King Midas, touching everything into gold! A truly stellar career. Has the Queen had you knighted yet? And if not, what's taking her so long??

Beautiful month, not having European matches is making the league a cake-walk. Speaking of records though, are England still unbeaten? I think you would've eclipsed Spain's record unbeaten streak during the World Cup.

You are right about not having European football making it easy - my players are always fully fit!

And I'll check if England are still unbeaten when i'm home later

Originally Posted by cerud

I have finally read through this entire career thread and I gotta say...epic! You're King Midas, touching everything into gold! A truly stellar career. Has the Queen had you knighted yet? And if not, what's taking her so long??

I think allegations about my private life are holding her back.

In all seriousness, thanks for taking the time and effort to read through the whole thread. I hope you continue to follow it.

Well done Tom, have been off work for the last few days & have really been enjoying reading through the thread. Well done must be hard work updating as well as playing through all the games on FM!
Keep up the good work!

In all fairness we've got a big December coming up, with two Manchester derbies to play.

Originally Posted by mariogriffiths

Well done Tom, have been off work for the last few days & have really been enjoying reading through the thread. Well done must be hard work updating as well as playing through all the games on FM! Keep up the good work!

Like i say to all new posters in the thread, thank you for taking the time and effort to read through it all. I know i would get distracted and end up doing something else!

Doing the updates works in both ways. It's great that there's interest in them, the amount of posts from other people in the thread is amazing. But there are times when you get to the end of a month and you just want to keep playing, but you have to take screenshots, etc, for an update and it can be frustrating!Hope you keep following now you've read up to date.

I've been reading this thread from time to time and finally have got myself up to date. Nowadays, my FM playing is fairly limited due to children and work taking up a lot of my time. Have to say, though, I've been sporadically reading these forums for around 5 years now and this is one of the most inspirational threads I have read. It has made me interested in playing the game in a way I have never done before and actually stick out a career. No doubt those sentiments will go out of the window when I get sacked within four weeks!

I've been reading this thread from time to time and finally have got myself up to date. Nowadays, my FM playing is fairly limited due to children and work taking up a lot of my time. Have to say, though, I've been sporadically reading these forums for around 5 years now and this is one of the most inspirational threads I have read. It has made me interested in playing the game in a way I have never done before and actually stick out a career. No doubt those sentiments will go out of the window when I get sacked within four weeks!

Fantastic work, great updates, well done!

Until this save I had never had a save like this before. I use to play with one club for season after season until I got bored, and I must say I would advise anyone to try a save like this. I guess I have been lucky in the sense that I have had alot of success, which makes it easier to stick at.

Thank you for the kind words about my save. And don't worry, there'll be updates for a fair while yet.

I probably will need it. He hasn't become unsettled at all, despite always loving my praise, etc. And with Swansea now doing much better in the league, (they're up to 2nd), I don't see it happening anytime soon.

The definition of a mixed month, I would say! We started off with two good wins, the second at Everton in the snow was particularly good. But then came the Mancheter derby. United took the lead early after a mix up between Joe Hart and Yoann Le Moal left Wayne Rooney with a tap in. Just two minutes later though Neymar hit back, and then in the 50th minute it was Neymar who scored again to put us 2-1 up. Eight minutes later though Rooney equalised for them, tapping home a Gareth Bale cross. 2-2 it finished, but it kept the gap at a large ten points.

Following that we got a decent 1-0 win at high flying West Brom, before a rather drab 0-0 draw against Arsenal. Against QPR we were terrible, and they deserved their 2-1 win. But we bounced straight back away at Bolton, with Neymar grabbing what turned out to be the winner in a 2-1 victory.

Up next is Swansea at the Etihad. It could be crucial, and is likely to be tough after their form throughout December.

League Cup - Quarter Final

A very good performance from us, even though we had to wait for our goal. We didn't boss possession as I expect us to, but we did create many more chances than them, and certainly deserved to go through to the semi-finals by the 1-0 scoreline.

In the semi final we face Bolton, and if we get through could face Swansea in the final, who face Aston Villa in the other semi.